A health care worker from Birmingham was ordered to be struck off after he was found guilty of having “straddled” an unconscious woman patient for his own sexual gratification.

Russell Newton, an operating department practitioner, was found guilty of misconduct after a disciplinary hearing ruled he had stretched his body out “flat” on a young woman recovering from an operation, out of sexual motivation.

Jacki Pearce, chairman of the Health Professions Council conduct and competence committee, said striking Mr Newton off the register was “appropriate and proportionate” in the circumstances.

The hearing was told the woman, named only as Patient A, had been unconscious in the recovery unit of the Little Aston Hospital in Sutton Coldfield after undergoing surgery on her nose in September 2007.